Blog Post:The content sharing service site Pinterest.com has emerged as a consistent strong sales-driving referrer for a number of sites. In this blog post I will review Pinterest tracking and reporting methods right out of standard reports in SiteCatalyst through referring domain, isolated pin referrers, and non-pin referrers. The segmentation features of SiteCatalyst v15 provide further insights into Pinterest referred traffic site behavior. I should note Steve Wirig of the Social Media Consulting Team earlier outlined advanced enhancements to Pinterest tracking (Why All The Interest In Pinterest?) and my intent in this post is to cover what is available for users through standard SiteCatalyst v15 reports.
Pinterest Referring Domain Tracking
Pinterest tracking starts within the familiar standby of referring domains reports. The Referring Domains report shows the root domains that referred visitors to your site. It therefore allows for an aggregate view for all the variations of full URL pinterest referrers into a single unified pinterest.com value. To run first navigate to the Traffic Sources>Referring Domains report and then filter the report using the term ‘pinterest’. Users can report and trend total Pinterest.com traffic, standard events, and custom events metrics for any time period with this view.
Pinterest SiteCatalyst Tracking 1.1: Pinterest Filtered Referring Domain Report Pinterest.com Referrers for Pins/Non-Pins Tracking
Where it gets interesting however with Pinterest.com referred traffic are the possibilities to manipulate different report filters to parse out distinct types of pinterest referring sources. SiteCatalyst through the advanced filtering options in the Traffic Sources>Referrers report allows for user decisions around types of URL identifiable pinterest traffic. For example you can choose the following filtering options to shape the end referrers report data through Contains OR Does not contain rules.
pinterest.com/pin – To distinguish individual board pins driving traffic to a site.
pinterest.com/all – To distinguish when specific organized board categories are driving traffic to a site.
Pinterest SiteCatalyst Tracking 1.2: Pinterest Referrer URL Filtering Advanced Options
In the below report example using the single filter of ‘pinterest.com/pin’ within the Traffic Sources>Referrers report; filters the report to show top traffic driving pins by Instances and Unique Visitors. Important to note that each Referrer line item link is live and can be clicked to view the exact pin in question on Pinterest.com.
Pinterest SiteCatalyst Tracking 1.3: Pinterest Referrers INCLUDING pinterest.com/pin ONLY In the second report example using the Advanced filtering option so that the referrer does not contain ‘pinterest.com/pin’, but does contain ‘pinterest.com’; filters the report to show top non-pins traffic from Pinterest.com by Instances and Unique Visitors. You can use this report to identify Pinterest members that drive traffic and which organized pin board categories your content and product is being included within Pinterest. All the links are again live and can be clicked to view the exact content on Pinterest.com.Pinterest SiteCatalyst Tracking 1.3: Pinterest Referrers EXCLUDING pinterest.com/pin Occurrences Pinterest Segmentation
The second layer to Pinterest.com tracking utilizes the segmentation feature of SiteCatalyst v15 to filter all reports by user determined Pinterest.com criteria. For example if users want to understand Pinterest.com traffic overall; the following segment can be built within a given report suite or through the Segment Manager option in the Admin Console.
Pinterest SiteCatalyst Tracking 1.4: Pinterest SiteCatalyst v15 Segment Build Canvas
There are numerous applications for Pinterest.com segments once built; as the segment can filter:

Visitor Profile reports to show where Pinterest.com traffic is located as determined by IP Address.

Tips & Tricks

The referrers value of ‘m.pinterest.com’ can be leveraged to distinguish mobile Pinterest.com traffic in addition to device type detection methods.

Many of the mentioned reports can be built within a ReportBuilder worksheet to create a polished single summary worksheet with custom graphs and trend comparisons. To evaluate the impact of Pinterest.com on your site; consider building a week over week or quarterly recap report covering the reviewed SiteCatalyst reports.

Adobe Social and the Social Media Consulting Team can offer even further enhancements to Pinterest tracking than these base reports.

There are available third party Pinterest tracking integrations that use Adobe SiteCatalyst through Web Services API access to provide Pinterest pinned images and analytics site data side by side.

Conclusion
I would encourage all SiteCatalyst users intrigued by Pinterest to take a pass at the reviewed reports in SiteCatalyst. Pinterest.com tracking in SiteCatalyst can take on many levels depending on business intent, but these initial reports are a gateway for assessing the behavior and value of the traffic. The stalwart referring domain data coupled with robust segmentation proves its worth in tracking pins and boards.
Brian Au is a con­sul­tant in Adobe Con­sult­ing, focused on dig­i­tal strat­egy, ana­lyt­ics & opti­miza­tion for retail & travel clients. He tweets at @BrianAu.
Author:Brian Au
Date Created:March 14, 2013
Headline:SiteCatalyst Pinterest.com Referrer Based Reporting & Segmentation
Social Counts:
Keywords: #Adobe Analytics #Adobe Marketing Cloud #Adobe SiteCatalyst #pinterest #Pinterest Boards #Pinterest Pins #Pinterest.com #Referring Domain Reports #Retail & Travel #segmentation
Publisher:Adobe

SiteCatalyst Pinterest.com Referrer Based Reporting & Segmentation

The content sharing service site Pinterest.com has emerged as a consistent strong sales-driving referrer for a number of sites. In this blog post I will review Pinterest tracking and reporting methods right out of standard reports in SiteCatalyst through referring domain, isolated pin referrers, and non-pin referrers. The segmentation features of SiteCatalyst v15 provide further insights into Pinterest referred traffic site behavior. I should note Steve Wirig of the Social Media Consulting Team earlier outlined advanced enhancements to Pinterest tracking (Why All The Interest In Pinterest?) and my intent in this post is to cover what is available for users through standard SiteCatalyst v15 reports.

Pinterest Referring Domain Tracking

Pinterest tracking starts within the familiar standby of referring domains reports. The Referring Domains report shows the root domains that referred visitors to your site. It therefore allows for an aggregate view for all the variations of full URL pinterest referrers into a single unified pinterest.com value. To run first navigate to the Traffic Sources>Referring Domains report and then filter the report using the term ‘pinterest’. Users can report and trend total Pinterest.com traffic, standard events, and custom events metrics for any time period with this view.

Where it gets interesting however with Pinterest.com referred traffic are the possibilities to manipulate different report filters to parse out distinct types of pinterest referring sources. SiteCatalyst through the advanced filtering options in the Traffic Sources>Referrers report allows for user decisions around types of URL identifiable pinterest traffic. For example you can choose the following filtering options to shape the end referrers report data through Contains OR Does not contain rules.

In the below report example using the single filter of ‘pinterest.com/pin’ within the Traffic Sources>Referrers report; filters the report to show top traffic driving pins by Instances and Unique Visitors. Important to note that each Referrer line item link is live and can be clicked to view the exact pin in question on Pinterest.com.

In the second report example using the Advanced filtering option so that the referrer does not contain ‘pinterest.com/pin’, but does contain ‘pinterest.com’; filters the report to show top non-pins traffic from Pinterest.com by Instances and Unique Visitors. You can use this report to identify Pinterest members that drive traffic and which organized pin board categories your content and product is being included within Pinterest. All the links are again live and can be clicked to view the exact content on Pinterest.com.

The second layer to Pinterest.com tracking utilizes the segmentation feature of SiteCatalyst v15 to filter all reports by user determined Pinterest.com criteria. For example if users want to understand Pinterest.com traffic overall; the following segment can be built within a given report suite or through the Segment Manager option in the Admin Console.

Visitor Profile reports to show where Pinterest.com traffic is located as determined by IP Address.

Tips & Tricks

The referrers value of ‘m.pinterest.com’ can be leveraged to distinguish mobile Pinterest.com traffic in addition to device type detection methods.

Many of the mentioned reports can be built within a ReportBuilder worksheet to create a polished single summary worksheet with custom graphs and trend comparisons. To evaluate the impact of Pinterest.com on your site; consider building a week over week or quarterly recap report covering the reviewed SiteCatalyst reports.

Adobe Social and the Social Media Consulting Team can offer even further enhancements to Pinterest tracking than these base reports.

There are available third party Pinterest tracking integrations that use Adobe SiteCatalyst through Web Services API access to provide Pinterest pinned images and analytics site data side by side.

Conclusion

I would encourage all SiteCatalyst users intrigued by Pinterest to take a pass at the reviewed reports in SiteCatalyst. Pinterest.com tracking in SiteCatalyst can take on many levels depending on business intent, but these initial reports are a gateway for assessing the behavior and value of the traffic. The stalwart referring domain data coupled with robust segmentation proves its worth in tracking pins and boards.

Brian Au

Brian Au is a business consultant at Adobe and is focused on measuring and improving digital experiences. In this role, he works on digital strategy, analytics and optimization for retail, travel and high-tech Adobe Marketing Cloud clients including Apple, Cisco, Gap Inc., Nike, Sam’s Club, Sears, Sony, Target and Walmart.